Abstract:

"Let's read together" an intervention program aims to scaffolding the process of Arabic reading acquisition. The target population is first and second graders who come from low socio-economic background, these children are generally defined as "At-Linguistic Risk" and are likely to have difficulties and deficiencies in acquiring written Arabic. The current program works on fostering Reading and writing skills by working individually with a qualified tutor in a computerized environment. The intervention program combines between developing the ability for contextual understanding, developing the orthographical and phonological structure and teaching writing.

The intervention program is based on the presenter's doctorate (Makhoul, 2006) and nowadays the Research Institute for Innovation in Education (NCJW) at the Hebrew university is continuing to develop the program and spreading it between at-linguistic risk Arab populations in Israel (such as in south Israel "Negev"). Lately, the Israeli Ministry of Education approved the program.

Both the research and the program are based on Adams' Interactive Model (1991) which suggests that reading and writing acquisition is a process that requires "orchestration" of four basic processors that operate in parallel: the phonological processor, the orthographic processor, the semantic processor and the contextual processor. Adams's model is a cognitive model, its pedagogical implications were the basis for the program development and therefore the presenter combined the cognitive model with further educational aspects.

The program began at 2003 and was modified and updated based on the research results and the field needs. As a result, the program is dynamic and tailored to the unique needs of children.

The current presentation aim to present the development process of the program from the author's doctorate until today, the building principals of such program that compound between research and the field and the last research about the program, the latest data gathered from the field, living examples from the children's work and responses from the field.

Keywords:

Reading acquisition, Arabic, At-linguistic Risk, interactive model.